Various types of battery powered portable or self contained electrical equipment and apparatus are known in which the one or more batteries that power the equipment are either replaced or recharged to provide continued operation. In many applications equipment that includes one or more rechargeable batteries is placed in or otherwise connected to power supplying apparatus for recharging the batteries with the power supplying apparatus supplying electrical power to the equipment that uses the batteries by means of electrically conductive terminals. Although such an arrangemnt is satisfactory in many applications, situations exist in which it is difficult to provide external electric terminals for battery recharge or to provide an access port for battery exchange. Thus, in many situations, continued use of such equipment has not been possible without at least temporarily substituting new equipment for equipment that contains discharged batteries.
There are disadvantages to electrical terminals even in situations in which electrical terminals can be used to couple electrical power to the equipment for charging of batteries. Specifically, although reliability of conventional electrical terminals generally insures tens to hundreds of coupling operations, coupling the electrical terminals for battery recharging may be needed as often as once to several times each day. Thus, failure of the electrical terminals may occur as early as after one to two years of use.
Commonly employed battery powered equipment also often exhibits other disadvantages. For example, in many situations continuous monitoring of the battery charge status is required to determine when battery recharge is necessary. Often the electric electronic circuitry used for monitoring the battery status consumes a fair amount of electrical power, thus sometimes shortening the interval between battery recharge or replacement.